Chromilo Amin

It's been more than 3 years since I had any issues with my  11A-410A552 MTD Yard Machine lawn  mower (see previous history here  http://www.chromiloamin.com/2012/05/part-2-black-smoke-from-my-lawn-mower.html ) so it must be time for it to give me some anti-love. The engine break cable broke this past week so I couldn't mow the lawn. It also broke a while back but I was able to jerry-rig a replacement by re-connecting the cut cables with some wires and super glue. Can't believe that it lasted for 3 years.  Instead of doing the same fix this time, I gave in and bought a replacement engine break cable.  I searched around the web for the correct part number to order from MTD's website or from Ebay but my lawn mower must have been made before 1996 because I can't find any manuals for it.   The closest I could find was from Sears with part#746-0551 but said it was a throttle cable. It didn't look right so I just went to CanadianTire and was lucky that MTD so...

I finally completed my first obstacle race called Rugged Maniac. It was a very easy race for me, at 5k in total and 25 obstacles. Perhaps it was because I was expecting it to be difficult like Tough Mudder or the Spartan race so I over trained for it. Or maybe it was just tailored to be an easy race with so that there is a repeat next year. Whatever it is, I had fun.  I went with my friend Greg, Amy, Colin, and their friends this year. They live very close to the Cloverdale Fairgrounds so I just biked it to his house for an easy 6k ride just so I can get warmed up. After checking in, we immediately climbed a chest-high wall to get to the start of the race and this was great teaser.  When our wave time started at 1pm , I immediately regretted wearing white socks as we start out with "shoe catcher" obstacle where you cross a mud pool and immediately find yourself knee-high in mud. One of my favorites was "the ringer" because I didn't think I could do it. I ...

I purchased the SC 700C Solaris Hybrid bicycle over 3 months ago at a discount and was super excited to start getting fit. It helped with my daily dose of exercise, clocking in at 22 km per day on my bike commute. I have been riding to/from skytrain station from Monday to Friday for the past 3 months and love it. Just like wearing my Fitbit Flex consistently, I have gotten used to this routine and love my bike that way. I hate my bike when it affects my routine and takes me off-kilter. I have already had numerous issues with the front and rear derailers so I had tons of practice adjusting it so that it's perfect. The bike also does not go as fast as other bikes because I see riders easily pass me on similar routes using other hybrids. It just seems to lack efficiency which is actually better for me because I end up exerting more effort on a 40 minute bike route. Using Endmondo on my phone, I average around 17 km/hr using this bike and that's on a good day when all my muscle...

Here is my new daily bike route to and from work (marked in blue). The distance is approximately 11 km and it takes me about 45 minutes to complete one way. That's a solid 22 km with the return trip daily, if the weather plays nice. The terrain is not quite flat and has some slight inclines (shown in the pop out) so it takes some getting used to. I plan to cut down the time to 30 minutes hopefully in 3 months time, but for now I'm just happy to be able to complete a day of cycling.

We just finished running the Vancouver Sun Run this past weekend and am happy to see that I improved significantly from last year's Sun Run race results by 9 minutes. It took me 52 minutes to complete a 10K run! I ran the Granville Island 10K Turkey Trot last November and finished that in 55 minutes but I also don't think a 10km route for one event equals a different event in terms of time it takes to complete. So looking strictly at the stats for the Sun Run, I also dropped to being in the top 22 percentile for my age category instead of being in the 50 percentile from last year and the years before that. It must have been 4 years since I was able to run the Sun Run in under an hour so I begin to think what it was that let me break out of the cycle. Lose Weight  I weighed close to about 170lbs every year that I ran the Sun Run, except this 2015. I lost about 12lbs to prepare for the race through a combination of daily exercise and diet. I would say it's the diet...

Last week, I helped my kid with his homework to name as many saints or heroes from a poster of cartoon characters. It was difficult and we could only name a few like Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa, or Joan of Arc. These characters always wore the same clothes so it was easy. It was especially difficult naming the other characters  because I had just come back home from a week long trip by bus from Seattle. I wasn't really into it and could hardly see the image that my wife took of the poster. At one point, I named rapper Tupac Shakur as one of the characters on the poster (I'm a big fan). Under different circumstances, we would have named more but apparently our efforts were good enough because my kid received a medal for it. That's awesome.

My wife and kids put together this present/package for a 2-4 year-old girl to receive this Christmas. The kids didn't want to part with their red fox plush toy so we put in a teddy bear instead. On top of that, they put in crayons, a dress, toothbrushes, a story book (which took my daughter some convincing to let go), monetary donation, etc. I was late in bringing the shoebox for our group dropoff at the downtown location so I had to go to the Greyhound bus depot at 295 Terminal Avenue,in heavy rain, to drop it off personally. Happy to do it.